Cleansing - This refers to the soap's ability to grab on to oils. A soap molecule is a chain of carbon atoms. One end of the chain attracts water, the other end attracts oil. When you wash your skin with soap and water, multiple chains will gather around a droplet of oil (which contains, for lack of a better word, dirt) with their oil-hungry ends attached to the oil droplet. The water hungry ends are surrounded with water. To make this happen you need to mix up (scrub or rub) the soap and water on your skin. When you rinse, the oil droplets with the attached soap molecules are washed away. (more info here) Some soap molecules can have a very hungry oil grabbing end. Soap made with too much Lauric and/or Myristic Acid can irritate the skin by washing away not only the top dirty layer of oils, but also the protective layer of surface oils on the skin. Generally speaking, keeping the total of coconut and palm kernel in your recipe to no more than 30-35% can avoid this. A typical range for Cleansing would be 12 to 22. A soap recipe within this range, and made properly, will not irritate the skin.
